I Witch: A Hogwarts Tale
by RavenDove
Summary: This is not a Story about Harry.  It's about a Woman who lives in his world. Her parents lied to her about the magical world existing, and made her think she was insane.  Now after living in the Muggle World she has to learn to live in the Magical One.
1. An Old Promise Comes To Call

Harry Potter is the creation of J.K. Rowling. The following story takes place in that universe, but is not a Harry story. It is intended to be like _I Jedi._ A novel by Michael A. Stackpole that takes place in the Star Wars universe at the same time as the Jedi Academy Trilogy, but is about a character on their own journey through events in that time line. Not really about the main characters at all. The minor characters in the Harry Potter universe can make a major part in my story. I would also like to point out that though a major part of this story will take place at Hogwarts, it will incorporate other parts of the magical world. I am an American and the magical world of J.K. Rowling exists here too. There are creatures and legends and magical peoples that she has left untapped. Things that are rich additions to possibility when you only imagine. Just thought I'd warn you that if you can't open your mind to that you should not read further.

Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Jeppesen-Huff

PS-

I am looking for residents of Great Britten who are willing to politely correct my grammar and dialect usage.

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I WITCH: A HOGWARTS TALE

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter One: An Old Promise Comes to Call

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Ann held a newspaper over her head as the rain poured down. It had soaked through her coat and likely through the few things in her back pack. Her mind was still in a fog from the lack of her Tarazadone. She had taken her last dose two nights before, and was past fit to be tied as her hands shook more from the withdrawals than from the cold. The drugs had been a part of her life since before puberty.

When they faded from her system she saw things that the doctors had convinced her were not real. The things that Aunt Star had told her stories about when she was little. Up until the day that her father had cast Aunt Star and Uncle Peter from the Begay home in Chelsea. It was only a few months after that when Ann had seen the first doctors.

Ann Begay was twenty-three years old as years are counted, but in some ways she was much older, and in others she was still only a little girl and would always remain so. She was alone in the world and broke. Her parents, both scientists, had died in a plane crash when she was still in her early teens. They had made her a ward of the crown until she came of age, but since then she had been more or less on her own. Committed from time to time to different institutions, and then left to her own devices when they declared her no longer a danger to herself once more.

She'd lost her last job at a health food store a month ago when she wouldn't sell the latest weight loss supplement to a girl that couldn't have even been full healthy weight to begin with. When she couldn't find another job in time to make the rent, she was out on her ear.

When she ran out of her medications the nightmares would come, and then she would find herself either back in a mental ward, or she would die on the street unnoticed. No one would care about the loss of a mental patient with no family and no income. In all her life, though she had hit low before; she had never come so close to rock bottom as she was now.

She had scraggly light red-brown hair in an uneven razor cut that had been near militarily close to the scalp, but had been aloud to grow down past her ears. Her eyes were dark, and haunted. Her cloths were soaked thrift shop special. Her back pack held only a little food a few personal items, and the empty prescription bottles.

The alley she walked in now was dark, and she was staggered by a heavy coughing fit. There was an empty crate in front of a doorway. Turned on it's side it might give her some shelter from the rain. She heaved it over and crawled inside to wait out the night and the rain.

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Ann was jolted from her nightmare by the a loud knocking on the side of her make shift shelter. "Get out of there you bloody squib." a dirty man yelled at her. She could see a darkness around the man and he reached in to grab her. She bit his hand and came barreling out of the crate at him.

"You won't touch me." she yelled back as she grabbed her back pack from the ground and started running. In her haste she ran into a rather large bearded man. She twisted around in his massive hand and tried to force herself to calm. "_Kocha__kocha__, kocha_!" she said and she thought to herself _I am not here, this is not real._

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Rubeus Hagrid had been shopping in Diagon Alley with Professor McGonagall when he caught site of a scuffle in Knockturn Alley. One of the shop keepers was reaching into a crate in front of his shop when a young woman bit his hand and came barreling out of it. She yelled something at the shopkeeper and grabbed up a small pack, then ran straight into Hagrid.

He tried to stop her and ask if she was okay, but she just yelled out "_Kocha, kocha, kocha_!" then disappeared. He could still feel her struggling in his hand, but he couldn't see her.

Professor Minerva McGonagall Could see Hagrid struggling with thin air where a girl had been, and she thought very had heard the girl say. "Star!" she said as the memory came back. She hurried over and managed to take hold of the girl as she became visible again.

McGonagall looked the girl in the eye and she was certain, even though she had not seen her since she was seven years old. She took the girl into her embrace, "Ann Begay, I thought you would never be found."

Ann struggled to free herself from the woman's arms. She had met this woman before. "You aren't real!" she said as she fell to the ground. "You're just one of Aunt Star's stories."

McGonagall knelt to Ann's side, "Your Aunt Star never lied to you Ann."

Ann did not believe her, and she felt ill. What little she had manage to eat the night before began to come back up. She retched into a puddle, and lost it all. She felt very dizzy and she felt the large man's hands claim her again as she lost consciousness.

"I need you to go back to Hogwarts and fetch Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape." said McGonagall to Hagrid. "Just as soon as we have her into a room at the Leaky Cauldron."

" 'ho is she Professor?" Hagrid asked

"The Muggle born Niece of Star Lamont." said McGonagall.

"She was one of the bravest back in the day." Hagrid said with hushed reverence at the memory.

"Yes Hagrid."

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Severus Snape was a disagreeable fellow who took his position and his potions seriously to the exstream. He looked at the woman in the bed with both dread, and hope. "Muggles and their pills are insane." he said as he looked up to McGonagall. "You are certain she is Ann Begay?"

McGonagall handed him the pill bottles that had been in Ann's pack. "Her Identification Card, the labels on the bottles, and the scar just below her collar bone." she shook her head in the affirmative. "She also pulled off a spell I've only ever seen Star use, without the aide of a wand."

Dumbledore held up the necklace that had been taken from Ann's neck. "Jackalope Antler." he said. "Star brought some back with her after taking a trip to America."

Snape shook his head in disbelief. "She'd had a wand made of it."

"A wand she'd intended for Ann." said McGonagall. "It's still in the vault a Gringotts."

Snape looked again at the bottles. "These things were poisoning her, and she won't recover from their use very easily."

"Is there anything you can do to help her until we can get her to Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked.

"There is a potion I can make that will calm her enough to travel, and with Madam Pomfrey's help she can be made healthy of body, but I can assure nothing of her mind."

"That is a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it Severus." said Dumbledore. "We made a promise to Star that we would find her, and train her."

"And how exactly do you propose to train a grown woman at a children's school?" asked Snape, with more bite than he intended.

"By making her a child, of course." replied the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Snape took a piece of parchment from the bag he had brought with him. "I will need someone to fetch some things from the stores in the alley for me." he began to write a list.

"I'll fetch them, and some proper cloths for her." said McGonagall as she took the finished list.

Dumbledore took up his cloak from the chair by the door. "I will go ahead to Hogwarts, and inform Madam Pomfrey of the situation." He turned for the door. "It is very fortunate that Miss Begay was found after the students had been sent home for the Summer."

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Once Snape was alone in the room with Ann he heard her shift in the bed and cough as she had so many times since his arrival. For a moment he feared she would wake up before he had the potion ready, but he heard her whimpering and realized she was only having a bad dream. How many bad dreams had those quack Muggle doctors foisted upon the girl? When she settled again he found himself next to her, holding her hand.

Not everyone knew what Star Lamont had meant to Snape. She had been kind to him in his years as a student. He had even had a crush on her in school, but he'd never had the courage to act on his crush.

She was a dark skinned beauty of an old wizard family. She was a Ravenclaw who had been a beater for her house Quidditch team. That was why she had been a sort of a legend at the school.

He'd felt hurt when she married a Squib. Though when Voldemort had killed Peter Lamont to spite Star it had hurt Snape as well. It was two years after Voldemort had been defeated that Star had died in his arms. She'd been killed by one of The Dark Lord's last loyal followers that had tailed her to a meeting of some members of the Order Of The Phoenix. It was there that Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape had promised to find her niece and see that she was trained.

Star had been banned from the girls life when she was still small, but before her husband had died he had learned that his sister and brother in law were dead, and their niece Star had been made a ward of the Crown. At the time of Star's death the girl had been lost in Muggle bureaucracy. Institutionalized as a schizophrenic.

Now here she was ten years later. Not even a foot away from him, and he could make the promise right. Snape did not always like the Headmaster's plans, but for Star he would see this one through.

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	2. The Line of Clarity

I WITCH: A HOGWARTS TALE

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter Two: The Line of Clarity

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McGonagall and Snape had used Floo Powder to transport Ann to the Shreakking Shack, and from their they had used the secret passage beneath the Whomping Willow to transport her to the castle and into the hospital wing. Snape's potion had left the woman in a state of near Catatonia, but with the Muggle poisons still in her system that couldn't really be helped.

She had then been turned over to Madam Pomfey's care, where she would likely remain for some time. Though keeping her presence in the schools halls from everyone else's knowledge would have it's own difficulties. There was also the matter of how they would help her when or even if she could be brought to her senses.

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It was about one month later that Ann sat in Dumbledore's office looking around his private observatory with Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick and Snape explain things to her. The things around her were like they had come from a story book. She fussed about the draping of the robe she wore and made it a point not to be the first to speak.

"Are you able to accept that you are not having a delusion child?" Dumbledore asked with just a hint of hope in his words.

"If I'm not having a delusion now," Ann said quietly, "then why did my parents send me to see those doctors?"

"Because they didn't believe." said Snape. "They we're squibs that found it easier to live as Muggles."

"There is a line in a Shakespeare play about a fool thinking himself to be a wise man." said Ann with an accent that was neither English or wholly American. "And a wise man knowing himself to be a fool."

Dumbledore smiled, "_As You Like It_ if I am not mistaken."

Ann nodded, "The same logic can be put to sanity. I know that I am not sane." she said. "So for knowing I am not sane, I am sane, and in thinking myself sane for knowing I am insane, I am not sane."

Snape put his head in his hands and mumbled something to himself.

"I didn't quite understand that Severus." said McGonagall.

Snape gritted his teeth to keep himself from yelling. "I said that was a defeatist stance to take."

Ann looked right at Snape with a hurt expression that strangely reminded him of Star, even though she had none of Star's blood in her veins. "I have lived a defeatists life Mr. Snape,"she said, "no potion or incantation can change that."

She stood and turned her back to her interviewers. "There is a fine line of clarity that will always be beyond my grasp. A torment of two realties that I cannot reconcile, and have given up hope of ever doing so. The reality I know has no place for me, and the reality you present does not welcome me."

"Why doesn't it welcome you?" Dumbledore asked.

Ann turned again to face him. "Because I'm too old to learn how to live in it, and just as jobless and homeless as I was before my run in with your Mr. Hagrid."

"This is a school Miss. Begay." Dumbledore said. "We could teach you to live in this reality."

"I am too old for school." said Ann with certainty.

"Not necessarily." said Dumbledore. He pulled out the necklace that she had been wearing when she had been found.

Ann reached for her neck, "I thought I'd never see that again." She reached for the necklace. "It was a gift from great grandfather Begay on my naming day, when he declared I was the Morning Dove, because I would bring a new day to the tribes. Though I've never had any hope of actually doing that."

Dumbledore let her take the necklace and she put it back around her neck. She shrank down about two heads and found herself looking up at Dumbledore. "You shrunk me, ya bastard." she yelled up and found her voice had raised an octave or so to that of a child. She looked at her hands and found them uncallused. She then looked in a mirror to find herself, blond. Long silky dark-blond locks like she had when she was little.

"Puberty was bad enough the first time." she said to the eleven year old in the mirror.

"It is only an illusion." said Dumbledore. "Take off the necklace if you want to return to normal."

Ann undid the clasp and let it fall to the floor. She was twenty-three and life worn again, and it took her a moment to get use to being over five feet tall once more. "What did you do to it?"

"It is a simple charm." said Dumbledore. "So long as you wear it you will appear to be exactly twelve years younger than you actually are."

"And no one here would know I was older than a student." said Ann.

"Only those of us in this room, Madam Pomfrey and Hagrid." said McGonagall.

"But I am not eleven years old." said Ann.

Snape took a deep breath before he spoke. There was a part of him still convinced this was not going to work, even if they could gain the sanction of the Ministry. "Your Aunt Star named you and your descendants as her only heirs. We could call you by your middle name, claim that you are your own daughter, and admit you to the school as your guardians."

Ann took a seat and stared blankly for a second. "I think I'd like a ride back to the alley."

"This can only work if you do it willingly." said Dumbledore.

"It would seem that I have nothing to lose." she said. "Though I never much cared for the name Mae."

Ann picked up the necklace and looked it over again before putting it on once more. "Perhaps I should go by Alice instead." she said when she had adjusted to her diminutive form.

Dumbledore smiled at the joke. "Ann Mae Begay the II would make more sense."

"Ann Mae Begay Tah-sherit." Minni said firmly using the Egyptian term.

"The Younger it is then." said Snape.

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	3. The House of The Snake

I WITCH: A HOGWARTS TALE

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter Three: The House of the Snake

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When Hagrid led Ginny Weasley and the rest of the first years from the train there was already one little girl in the boats. She had golden blond hair tied in many little braids dark eyes and a tanned complexion. Ginny took a seat in the boat right next to her.

"I'm Ginny." she said to the girl. "Ginny Weasley."

"I'm Mae Begay." said the girl in a sad quiet voice.

"I didn't see you on the train." Ginny said with excitement.

"My guardians brought me here on their own." Mae said.

"Does that mean you're a Orphan?" Ginny asked but she didn't get an answer. The boats drifted over the lake and under the castle, without Mae saying another word.

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Ann watched as the other first years were sorted to their houses and tried to remain calm as she waited for her turn. She did not want to have the children around her to see her as antsy or nervous. The Girl from the boat was sorted to Gryffindor, others to Hufflepuff and to Ravenclaw, some who had darker auras to Slytherin.

She was called next to last, and almost forgot to answer when McGonagall called Mae Begay. She took her seat on the chair and held her breath as the hat was placed on her head.

"There is reservation in this one," the hat said. "a contradiction in her heart. She bares not only powerful wizard's blood, but that of a Medicine Chief as well. She could bring much to the house that claims her, but which one will give her what she needs in return." The hat paused to think. "She poseses a link to the Earth that only the snake could understand. SLYTHERIN, but it will never claim her heart"

When the hat was removed Ann stood and took a seat at the Slytherin table. A blond second year smiled at her as she sat down and offered his hand.

"I'm Draco Malfoy." he said.

"I don't care." said Ann with enough fire in her eyes that they turned red beneath the enchanted sky of the great hall.

Draco pulled back his hand. "You are a Slytherin now, and that means that we are your family while you're here."

"I never cared much for my relatives either." Mae said. It was a lie, there were relatives that she loved very deeply, and though she bore some anger at her parents, she still loved them as well. It was however enough to convince Draco to leave her alone for the rest of the evening.

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Snape's disappointment at not having Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley expelled was mitigated somewhat by the knowledge that Ann would be in his own house. It was unusual to have such a gentle creature in Slytherin.

The sorting hat always had a reason for putting students in their houses. It might just prove interesting when he finally learned why she was put with the likes of Draco Malfoy, and Millicent Bulstrode.

Snape's placement in the house had not always made sense to him either. He was driven like the other members of the house without question, but it wasn't until his time at school that he had learned to be truly hard in a world that was always cold to him.

Maybe that was why Ann was in Slytherin...

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When Mae was led to the Slytherin common room Snape pulled her aside. "You are in my house now, and even if you are not the same as the other students I expect you to at least try and get along with them."

"I will not go picking fights," she said, "but your house has many with dark auras like the bullies that I knew when I really was this age and I will not let them turn me into what I am not." She looked out over the lot as they made their way to their rooms. "The hat said that this house would not win me over completely." She looked back to Snape, "I will do only what I must to survive here."

Snape could really not expect anything else from her and he knew it. "You will not have a roommate." he said.

"I thought all students were expected to have roommates." she said.

"I've had a smaller storage room in the dormitory turned into a room." he paused. "There are enough first year girls to fill up the regular rooms set aside."

"And if anyone asks why I get my own room?" Mae asked.

"It is because you preform magic in your sleep and the walls had to be charmed for other's safety." Snape smiled.

Dumbledore had ruled that Mae Begay would have to have her own room all along because it would be easier for her secret to be kept that way. He had made arrangements with each of the house leaders for that problem.

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	4. Atypical

I WITCH: A HOGWARTS TALE 

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter Four: Atypical

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Mae was silent at breakfast. The other members of Slytherin did not interest her and neither did the howler that a Gryffindor boy got. She simply sat and ate her cereal while the others amused themselves. When she had finished she went to the first class on her schedule and found her seat in the back. It was the History of Magic with Professor Binns, the ghost.

The Professor had not yet arrived and the members of Slytherin a Gryffindor came in to claim their seats. A blond boy from Gryffindor dropped a camera and one of the Slytherin boys picked it up and started to tease him about being a Mud Blood. Minni shook her head. "To be placed with the likes of him is almost too much." she said.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Ginny Weasley from her desk across the isle.

"I wasn't talking to you Ms. Weasley, I was talking to whatever deity that thought I should be placed in a house with so many idiots." said Mae.

The boy who had been teasing the Gryffindor boy overheard Mae and decided that he was not happy with her attitude. "What did you say?" he asked with disbelief.

"I said I was in a house full of idiots." said Mae. "You are here to learn, not to act like a ill mannered Troll."

"You should talk," said the boy, "I here you're a Mud Blood too."

Mae stood and closed her eyes, "_Kocha, kocha, kocha._" she was invisible. She walked right around the boy and smacked him in the back of the head just hard enough that he knew he had been hit. Then walked to the front of the room and willed herself visible again. "I was raised by Muggles, but I am no Mud Blood. I am a descendant of the Lukas and the granddaughter of a Medicine Chief. I am the heir of Star Lamont." In her anger her eyes grew red and began to glow. "I will not be a part of you petty bickering, or you house rivalries. I may have been sorted to Slytherin, but the Hat said it would not win me over. I have always been destined to walk my path alone."

It was then that Professor Binns entered, completely oblivious to what had just taken place. "If you will all take your seats please?"

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Word of Mae's little outburst traveled around the school in hushed whispers, and by dinner time everyone knew that Mae was not the sort of person that you wanted to make angry. She sat alone at the end of her house table. Glad for the luck not to be bothered by the others.

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Ginny found herself sitting with her brothers Fred and George at the Gryffindor table and watching Mae Begay with a critical eye. "She actually attacked a fellow Slytherin."

"She must be balmy." said George. "Your house is your family."

"At least that is what they always say." Said Fred.

"I hear she told Draco Malfoy she didn't care for her relatives either." said Parvati Patil.

"And it's all over that she has her own room in the Slytherin quarters because she has to be restrained from doing Dark Magic in her sleep." Lavender Brown added.

Fred and George looked at each other and exclaimed with devilish grins at the same time. "That one's just too good to be true."

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